Readme.txt

This file describes the files and instructions for replicating the results based on the MCD-PUMS data set contained in Daly, Mary C.; Wilson, Daniel J.; and Johnson, Norman J. "Relative Status and Well-Being: Evidence from U.S. Suicide Deaths" (forthcoming, Review of Economics and Statistics)

The MCD-PUMS results in the paper are contained in Tables 1, 5, 6, 7, and B2 and Figures 3-4. (The other tables are based on the NLMS data described in the paper. We are not able to provide replication files for those results because the NLMS is a confidential Census Bureau data set. Interested researchers can apply to the Census Bureau to have analyses done at the Census Bureau by contacting Norman Johnson at norman.j.johnson@census.gov.)

Here are instructions for reproducing/replicating the results in each table and figure:

The MCD-PUMS results in Tables 1, 5, 6, 7, and B2 are obtained by the following program using Stata (Version 12):

analysis_garshem.replication.do 

Results are pulled from the resulting log file. This program uses the following two Stata data sets:

1) s_rates_by_garshem_wo0geos_wo1.dta
2) 1990_2000panel.dta

When running this program, make sure these data sets are in your present working directory.

The values plotted in Figure 3 are produced in this program and output to the following CSV file:

hhincome_kdensity_reduced.csv

which is then plotted using:

hhincome_kdensity_reduced.xls

Note that these data sets are semi-aggregate data (cells are geographic-unit*age*race*sex*hispanic*education*marital-status) constructed from the non-public-use Mortality Detail Files from the National Center for Health Statistics. Those data may be accessed by making a request to the NCHS.

